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Cake
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Flames, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief and Human Connection
Nature vs. Human Effort
Sexism
Love and Respect
Summary
Analysis
In the ranger’s ten years in the Southwest National Park, he’s been awed by various aspects of nature—ice storms, Oneblood tuna, the southern lights. As a child, he’d come home after school only for his mother to lock him outside, leaving him to roam the outdoors. Still, he'd been unprepared for the wildness of the southwest. It overwhelmed him at first, but he soon began to enjoy the wonder of everything he saw and heard.
The ranger’s childhood and the first difficult years of his job suggest that a relationship with nature—one of love and respect, rather than greed and exploitation—takes time and effort to build. It took his mother’s forceful encouragement and his own patience to truly appreciate the beauty of the natural world.
Themes
When Nicola and Charlotte arrive at the ranger’s hut and report on the deaths at the wombat farms, claiming that Allen has gone mad and asking for a way out, the ranger doesn’t believe them at first. He doesn’t help them until he sees the state of the farm for himself. An hour after arriving there, once he’s seen the dead wombats, the hungry cormorants, and Allen’s haggard, crazed appearance, he requests a plane to take the farmhands away. The plane lands. Because of the high winds, it won’t be able to leave until the next day. The ranger also calls for a doctor, but they won’t arrive for another week, so he decides to leave Allen alone until then, even though he's the closest thing the ranger has to a friend.
The ranger’s lack of trust in Charlotte and Nicola suggests two things. First, it’s highly surprising that Allen is acting in a threatening way, which emphasizes the extent of his psychological transformation. Second, the ranger’s instinct to put more stock in his own observations than the word of two young women who clearly believe themselves to be in danger suggests that he has a slight, perhaps unconscious sexist bias. Given that the winds are so high by the time the plane lands, the ranger’s ingrained sexism (which delayed his decision to investigate the situation at the farm) effectively leaves Charlotte and Nicola in danger for longer.
Themes
The ranger wakes from a dream of something “bright and vivid.” He pulls the curtain aside to see a blue flicker near the farm. He heads out to see what’s going on. The blue light has disappeared, but soon he hears the thundering of feet—Nicola and Charlotte—followed by a blue flame racing over the top of the hill. As the flames ravage the fields, the ranger scrambles to decide what to do. He hears a bang and a shout behind him: the pilot has opened the door of the plane, and he gestures for everyone to get onboard. The ranger and the farmhands reach the plane, but the farmhands stop to talk before they board. The ranger sees flames falling like tears from Charlotte’s eyes. Nicola reaches to touch Charlotte’s cheek, and the flames die out. At the pilot’s urging, they all board the plane.
The ranger’s dream is synchronized with the vibrant fire on the farm, hinting that there’s something supernatural about what he’s about to witness. The blue flames that follow Nicola and Charlotte over the hill reinforce this idea. When the ranger watches the farmhands before they board the plane, it seems to make them all forget the danger of the fire, suggesting that all three of them are just now realizing the life-changing significance of what has happened here.
Themes
The plane lands in the capital as the sun rises. The ranger asks Charlotte and Nicola to wait in the airport police office as he reports the fire. He resolves not to tell anyone where the flames came from if Charlotte and Nicola refuse to elaborate in their interview. By the time an officer finally appears at the desk, Nicola and Charlotte have disappeared, so the ranger simply reports the fire and ensures the pilot gets paid. He imagines what Melaleuca looks like right now: the fire will have burned out on the water’s edge, and soon new shoots of grass will spring up stronger. Wild animals will return. The ranger will feel the wonder of nature, and he’ll write to his mother about it.
The ranger doesn’t report the incident as arson or as a crime at all, perhaps partly because he doesn’t understand what caused the fire, and perhaps partly because he feels responsible for Charlotte and Nicola’s safety. He doesn’t attempt to get involved in a situation he doesn’t understand, which matches his attitude toward the natural landscape in which he works—his small tasks aim to preserve nature rather than to tame or exploit it. After all, nature’s ability to restore itself will always far outpower his small, human actions.
Themes
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